Michael Hickey/US PRESSWIRECarmelo Anthony was brilliant for the Knicks on Tuesday, but the entire team buckled in the fourth and then J.R. Smith lost his cool.

In a week that sees the Knicks playing at Orlando against the Magic and at home against the Chicago Bulls, Monday's game was as winnable as they come. Besides the 15-point lead the Knicks took in to the fourth quarter, the Indiana Pacers are the same team that fell twice to New York just a few weeks ago. To completely collapse against a team you've beaten badly this season isn't a strategic failure or a bad shooting night. It's a loss of focus that interim Knicks coach Mike Woodson has to rectify before his team squanders its game and a half lead over the Milwaukee Bucks for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs.

On a tough morning for Knicks fans, here's NJ.com's daily aggregation of team news from around the web:

• Howard Beck of The New York Timesdoesn't think the final 13 minutes of Tuesday's loss will be completely understood for some time: "So much changed for the Knicks in a torrid, dizzying 13-minute span Tuesday night that it may take hours or days before they fully digest the consequences... They lost a 17-point lead, they lost their cool, then they lost the game as their grip on a playoff berth became a little looser. If the Knicks ultimately miss the postseason, they will look back with stinging regret on a stunning 112-104 loss to the Indiana Pacers... Carmelo Anthony was mostly brilliant, scoring a season-high 39 points, only to miss the two most critical shots of the night. The Knicks’ defense was mostly sound, until it allowed a 40-point fourth quarter."

• J.R. Smith punctuated an ugly loss by throwing Pacers guard Leandro Barbosa to the ground, wrote Frank Isola of the New York Daily News: "J.R. Smith reached his breaking point in the closing seconds of a potentially disastrous loss when he tossed Leandro Barbosa to the floor as if he were a plastic bottle being discarded into a recycling bin... 'Yeah, I got a little fed up,' Smith said. 'It happens.'... The ugly scene and Smith’s ejection were a fitting ending to what amounted to the worst quarter and worst loss for the Knicks under Mike Woodson. The Knicks imploded in every way imaginable Tuesday night in losing 112-104 to the Indiana Pacers, a team that overcame a 17-point third-quarter deficit."

• Carmelo Anthony said the Knicks were outworked in the fourth quarter, wrote Steve Popper of The Bergen Record: "With an undermanned and undersized roster, the Knicks had built a 17-point lead with just over 30 seconds left in the third. Then reality set in, a crushing, devastating reality. It took less than six minutes for the entire lead to disappear, a 13-0 run keying a 24-4 burst and suddenly a loud celebration engulfed Bankers Life Fieldhouse. By the time the Knicks shook out of the daze, the run had gone to 32-6... 'Man, 40 points in fourth quarter is just, it’s too much,' Carmelo Anthony said. 'They were able to get some steals, get some rebounds. They just outworked us, going into that fourth. We kind of got lax going into the fourth quarter. And they ran away with it.'"

• Despite the poor fourth quarter, Anthony had a chance to get the Knicks back into the game with a few open looks from beyond the arc, explained Al Iannazzone of Newsday: "With the Knicks down 105-102 with about 42 seconds left, Anthony had the ball and an open look at a potential tying three. It rattled out. Danny Granger made 1 of 2 from the foul line with 38.9 seconds to go to make it a four-point game... Anthony was upset with himself after missing that three-pointer, but he had to rebound quickly and had another good look from deep on the next trip. He misfired again, leading to two Paul George foul shots and a 108-102 Indiana advantage... 'They both felt good,' Anthony said. 'They came out. Despite that, we were up [by 15 points] going into the fourth. For us to give that lead up, it was just unfortunate. We can't have that.'"

• Just after Reggie Miller was inducted to the Hall of Fame, another Pacers star took it upon himself to play the role of Knicks antagonist, Berman explained: "One day after Reggie Miller was announced as an inductee into the Hall of Fame, Danny Granger did the Pacers legend proud by engineering a comeback as the Knicks choked in the fourth quarter... Granger, in playing the role of Knicks-killer, gunned down Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks with a 3-of-3 3-point shooting display in the final 12 minutes. He scored 14 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Pacers to a 112-104 victory over the Knicks Tuesday night. Granger also was assigned to defend Anthony in the fourth and slowed him down after he wreaked havoc for three quarters... Hundreds of fans trotted out their Miller jerseys last night and there was even a Reggie chant before the game... 'I guess it was from one shooter to another, my tribute to Reggie Miller,' Granger said."

• While some players (J.R. Smith) accused the New York media of being "vultures," saying they're just trying to "sell papers," Jeremy Lin actually thanked reporters for their hard work, wrote Isola: "Jeremy Lin took to Twitter to thank the New York media for its coverage of the cultural phenomenon known as Linsanity... 'Thanks to the NY media and Knicks beat writers for all your hard work in getting information/stories to the fans,' Lin tweeted from his hospital bed early Tuesday. 'Goodnight.'... It was an unexpected show of gratitude from the second-year guard out of Harvard, who had surgery Monday to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. Of course, when teammate Tyson Chandler heard what Lin had done, the veteran center joked, 'He was drugged.'”

• Amar'e Stoudemire tested his back by shooting free throws on Tuesday, but that's not necessarily a sign he's set to return, Iannazzone wrote: "Amar'e Stoudemire shot free throws before Tuesday night's game but still is weeks away from playing... The timetable for Stoudemire is not 2-4 weeks from the time he suffered the back injury, which was March 24. The Knicks said Tuesday night it's 2-4 weeks from the time Stoudemire had the epidural shot to alleviate the pressure from the bulging disc in his back... That was last Thursday. So the earliest Stoudemire could return is April 13 against Washington, which doesn't seem likely at this point."

• As Popper pointed out, Stoudemire was in no mood to talk about his injury: "Amar'e Stoudemire didn't actually run from the media Tuesday, joking around pleasantly before the game. But he did refuse to answer questions, his only comment being, 'I'm in silent mode — focused.'... Stoudemire still has not spoken since March 24, when he left the game in a win over the Pistons with discomfort and a day later was diagnosed with a bulging disk in his lower back."

• Berman quoted Woodson as saying Stoudemire is "day to day," but that's somewhat misleading: "Stoudemire appeared in great spirits, however, and all signs point to him being back before the playoffs begin April 28. Interim coach Mike Woodson vaguely called Stoudemire’s status 'day-to-day' — clearly hoping to speed up matters and motivate his power forward... 'All we can do with him is just take it a day at a time and see where he is physically,' Woodson said. 'When he tells me he’s ready to play, I’ll put him in uniform and back on the floor. Like I said, he’s day to day. He’s getting his treatment. The fact he wants to be around the team during this process says a lot... 'I wish I could tell you it would be this weekend. I really don’t know.'”

• Mitch Lawrence of the Daily News found one of Indiana's top back specialists who doesn't necessarily have a medical degree: "Larry Bird knows a few things about basketball, including how to shoot one and what happens when a big man can’t take the court because of a serious back injury... 'My back problems cost me at least three or four years,' Bird said Tuesday before his Indiana Pacers took on the Knicks. 'After I hurt it, I always played with spasms. To fix the instability and get the disc out of there, they had to fuse my back. But I kept playing because I wanted to always get that last championship, or play for one more championship. That was just me.'”

• How did Woodson and ABA legend George McGinnis spend their days growing up in Indiana? Tim Rohan of The Times has the story: "Growing up in Indianapolis in the 1960s — long before everyone knew his name, and long before he shared an American Basketball Association Most Valuable Player award with Julius Erving — George McGinnis knew where to find the best pickup games during the summer. When he was 13, McGinnis crammed into the cozy Douglass Park Family Center gym on the city’s east side, where 50 or more players jockeyed for playing time, watched the games from a stage on one side of the gym and cooled off in the doorway... McGinnis would eventually sprout to 6 feet 8 inches, be nicknamed Hercules for his size and physique and play for Indiana University and then the Indiana Pacers of the A.B.A. But as a 13-year-old, he waited in the crowd... It was what Mike Woodson did, too, as a high school standout in Indianapolis. Nearly a decade younger than McGinnis, he likewise showed up at Douglass as he moved into his teenage years. Now the coach of the Knicks and back in Indianapolis on Tuesday for a game against the Pacers, he was asked what he remembered about those days."